It looks like the game's side activities will include tennis, dirt bike racing, and parachuting.

After things went quiet following the release of new screenshots in July, two new batches of Grand Theft Auto V screenshots have been released this week. The first, released on Monday, showed off three different forms of transportation: a bicycle, Cheetah (the GTA sports car, not the animal), and military jet of some sort. Today we got another three screens, these being much more interesting to me as they show various forms of leisure. Presumably this is some indication of the types of side activities we'll see in the game, an area in which past games haven't exactly excelled.

When Grand Theft Auto III was released, one of the many cool things about it was the ability to partake in side missions. Stealing a taxi, ambulance, fire truck, or police car (or some law enforcement equivalent) presented you with the option of carrying out that vehicle's purpose -- putting out fires, catching criminals, etc. There were also Rampages (where you kill people with a certain type of weapon), cars to be boosted, and RC cars used to race or wreak havoc.

GTA III's many sequels have introduced new side missions as you'd expect, but by and large they have failed to do anything particularly interesting or well. While Saints Row and Just Cause have been busy offering up outrageous thrills, GTA's side missions have been comparatively lame. Delivering pizzas? Serving as a valet at a hotel? Playing poor versions of basketball, pool, darts, and bowling? Yawn. There were exceptions, like the Blood Bowl destruction derby and base jumping, but these were few and far between.

It is true that you could easily ignore all of this stuff. Unless you're intent on reaching the 100-percent mark or badly need the spare cash, there's no reason you have to bother with any of these missions; GTA games provide plenty of core missions to play, and the sandbox nature of the games means you can make your own fun. It is, however, a missed opportunity to not provide players with more enjoyable side missions.

Saints Row was clearly inspired by Grand Theft Auto, though compared to GTA IV and V it's gone in a much different direction, tone-wise, with its second and third titles. From the start its side missions were much more over-the-top and fun, a reality THQ and Volition were happy to highlight with a trailer for Saints Row 2. Being an advertisement for SR2, it obviously skewed things in its favor, but there was some truth to the point it was trying to make: "Would you rather go bowling or steal a septic truck and spray loads of sewage on pedestrians?"

Saints Row: The Third continued the trend, giving players a wide array of activities and diversions that are actually worth your time. These include Insurance Fraud (throw yourself in front of cars to suffer as much harm is possible, almost like the PSN game Pain without the catapult), Heli Assault (use a helicopter to provide support for one of your gang members driving around on the ground), Guardian Angel (similar to Heli Assault, only the helicopter is on rails and you use a rocket launcher to kill enemies), and, best of all, Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax (a game show where you earn money by moving through a trap-laden course, gunning down mascots and shooting targets). Even the racing activity (normally a lowlight in open-world games), Trail Blazing, is very enjoyable in either of its variants (one has you checkpoint racing with an ATV that blows up any vehicle it touches, and the other is a Tron-style race).

While GTA is the one that sells more and remains the face of the genre, Saints Row has surpassed it in many ways, side missions being the prime example. GTA V is more restricted in terms of what it can do due to Rockstar's desire for it to be more grounded in reality, though that doesn't mean its side missions have to be as dull as they been have in the past.

Unfortunately, today's screenshots don't prove things will be any different. They show what are believed to be three ways of passing the time outside of the core storyline: tennis, parachuting, and dirt bike racing. GTA's track record with sports minigames is not the greatest, but considering Rockstar's Table Tennis is a solid game, I'm hopeful this will buck the trend. Off-road racing, meanwhile, isn't a new concept to GTA, though improved bike handling, if that does prove to be a thing in GTA V, could get me excited about dirt bike racing; for now, I remain hesitant to think this is anything notable. And parachuting could be fun even if it, too, is not an original thing. But will doing so be as useful as in Saints Row: The Third or as entertaining as in Just Cause 2? That remains to be seen.

Unlike with Monday's screenshot release, there was no tease about more coming in the near future, so it may be a while yet before we get a look at what kind of new activities GTA V will bring with it (or anything at all, for that matter). As we face another wait before getting anything else new, I can't help but wonder if the restrictions imposed by the tone of the post-GTA III series games are getting in the way of some of the fun we could be having. If that's the case, would it be so harmful for side missions to abandon the tone of the storyline and go crazy? Are GTA's side missions forever doomed to being less exciting than their Saints Row counterparts that can be as out-there as Volition wants?

I'm curious to hear what you think; share your thoughts on the matter in the comments below and let me know what kind of side missions you'd like to see in GTA V.

Comments (16)

GTA IV

GTA IV was a real turning point in the series, for me. It didn't have as good a story as San Andreas but it was the first GTA game I ever played to completion. I lost interest in the others because of all the redundant backtracking. I'm hoping GTA V will play in IV's strengths and give us a bigger world to boot. I'm a little disappointed that we won't be going back to San Fierro or Las Venturas. But I grew up near Los Angeles. It's a town that deserves to be parodied. I hope the new game has lots of references to 'Heat' and another, more elaborate, bank job stage.

I hope C.J. has a cameo somewhere! And I hope they hire Bob Odenkirk and David Cross to do voices ('cuz who doesn't love Mr. Show? Never heard of it? Nevermind.)

agree

Yes, I think another reason GTA IV didn't have as many activites as previous games is that alot of time was developing the new engine and figuring everything out. If you compare other Rockstar games that came after such as the GTA IV expansions and RDR there is more content and everything is more polished. Now they understand everything about the engine and have got over the hurdles of incorporating the euphoria physics stuff.

Needs more crime related activity.

They need to bring back Rampage missions, add the drug running from Chinatown Wars, the pimping from Saint's Row 2, the territorial conflict from either 3 or SA, along with the auto theft and vigilante missions from 4.

yeah

GTA:

An extremely repetive "sandbox" game with intolerable controls that occasionally tries to entertain with a boring minigame that has been done better using flashplayer. Unless they can top the entertainment provided by Saints Row 3 and Just Cause 2, or they at least cut down on the repetition and awful controls, I can't say I care about GTAV

But of course they could make it half the game GTAIV was, and it'll still get great reviews and sales because it's made by Rockstar

Fuck Saint's Row!

,,,

The series' weak points aren't the lack of activities for me, it's the fact that even on a modern computer I can't run the game at halfway decent settings. I just want a game as robust as San Andreas but with the charm that Vice City had but also a game that can actually run on my computer.

here's a title

Colin McRae Rally 2.0 is 12 years old. If they can't make offroad cars behave like they do in that game then I'll be very dissapointed.

And I agree, a few activities in San Andreas felt like padding. But if GTA V continues the trend, there is a way to solve it: an 7/10 score lol

Oh, and yeah, if GTA is such a popular game with the mainstream then it doesn't make much sense releasing a game as badly optimized as GTA IV or Max Payne 3, right? There is a mainstream PC market out there for this if they advertise the PC version enough, but whatever :)

Needs of GTA V

I'm happy that the franchise is moving towards a more realistic world. However, GTA IV was too short and something felt amiss the whole time. The story was fun and great but it could have been better. Even if the franchise is going in this direction, it doesn't mean they can't go over the top and this was its weakest point. After all, wilder things happen in the real world. Also, it was a really limiting factor of having the police so powerful and vigilant. I don't mean that they should be stupid or stray from reality but giving the main character a chance to succeed other than having to run away by car would have made the game more fun. After all, in real life cops don't always get to the crime scene so quickly. Also, there are no silenced guns either! This limits the fun potential of GTA IV because you can't cause enough mess in the city and get away with it like a boss.

You're Sick!

GTA IV was an artistic masterpiece! I and others STILL play it online till this day! It is the one Xbox game I have not sold! If you have never been to NYC, that games gives you the essense of being there. Since I don't know much about Los Angeles, I cannot wait to see what that is about in V.

I'm sticking with GTA

Saint's Row is a Saturday Night Live skit of GTA. I only enjoyed SR3, but I have always come back to GTA. The game world just has more atmosphere. I think nobody creates virtual worlds as good as Rockstar.

Would I rather go bowling than spraying civilians with poop?

And may I also mention how freaking fun the open world multiplayer is. I still play with a group of friends at least once a month. There is a reason it is still in the top 10 XBL games being played.

GTA V will be Jawsome (Street Sharks)

GTA essentially created and will always own the open world genre. GTA IV provided us with a real story, not just mashups of tired and stereotypical tropes. The feel of driving is the number one reason GTA reigns supreme and they made a huge step forward in IV. However, I would never argue with the addition of quality content. As long as GTA avoids just creating a game based on a string of mini-games ala the Saints Row franchise then I think we will have a winner.

Don't worry the devs have learned their lesson on "forcing" people to socialize with NPCs and hopefully they'll take the best things from new games in the genre. (note: If only there was big red arrows pointing to how to pause these interactions I think the controversy would have been much more subtle).

I'd like to see:

o Combat similar to the Batman Arkham games / Sleeping Dogs (melee) and more depth and control to use of firearms (maybe add stats)

o Persistent and meaningful alteration/destruction of structures and the game world in general

o Many more non player characters on screen and more meaningful interaction with them

o Making the move to an even more mature storyline maybe examining more realistic gang structures

o A full blown casino with all the table games (maybe playing against online players automatically) with rankings and tournaments